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Albert Pujols: I'm No Cheater. And I'll Sue To Prove It.

Welcome to baseball’s next steroid battle – yesterday’s stars vs. today’s, and the drawing of the lines between free speech and reckless accusations.

When he was bashing for the San Francisco Giants and St. Louis Cardinals in the 1980s, Jack Clark stood out as one of baseball’s most feared hitters. Some still talk about his laser beam, ninth-inning homer off Dodger reliever Tom Niedenfuer to win the clinching Game Six of the 1985 National League Championship Series as the hardest ball ever hit, at least until Albert Pujols came along.

Like a lot of bygone sluggers , Clark apparently isn’t fond of the steroid era that followed. Watching juiced-up power hitters leave your numbers in the dust can’t be fun. And maybe Clark has more reason than most to be upset. As a staid, workmanlike player, he isn’t remembered as vividly as some of the flashier guys from the ‘80s. He was robbed of an MVP Award in 1987 in favor of Andre Dawson, based on nothing more than home run totals (49 to 35 – today’s better-educated voter probably would have favored Clark’s 1.055 OPS to Dawson’s 0.896).

So maybe it’s no real surprise that Clark lashed out on his St. Louis radio show the other day, taking shots at Albert Pujols and Justin Verlander. Pretty much out of nowhere, Clark spoke of each as a steroid cheat, even though neither has ever been linked to PEDs. On his show, Clark brought up a 13-year-old conversation with a former Los Angeles Dodgers’ conditioning coach (Clark was the Dodgers’ hitting coach at the time) who, Clark claims, told him that he had “shot Pujols up.” The coach, Chris Mihfeld, once Pujols’ personal trainer, denied the conversation ever took place and said he never saw Pujols use PEDs.

On Verlander, Clark was quoted saying this: “He threw 97, 98, 100 miles an hour from the first inning to the ninth inning. He got that big contract, now he can barely reach 92, 93. The signs are there.”

The immediate result: Not only is Clark off the air in St. Louis, but Pujols, the former Cardinal who’s now with the Angels, says he’s suing (it’s not clear if he’ll cite defamation, slander or libel, all of which differ slightly). His statement over the weekend: “I am currently in the process of taking legal action against Jack Clark and his employers at WGNU 920 AM. I am going to send a message that you cannot act in a reckless manner, like they have, and get away with it.” Verlander hasn’t come out as strongly but did hint at legal action while calling Clark’s accusation “moronic.”

So for the sake of other commentators who make their living voicing opinions, we need to probe the question: is Clark on shaky legal ground? Given Pujols’ muscular build and 492 homers, and Verlander’s propensity to throw 100 MPH, one might reasonably speculate that they’ve had some help, given the era they’ve played in. Do you need proof to air such an opinion?

Defamation and libel are generally defined as exercising false statements that cause a person harm. Pujols’s and Verlander’s lucrative contracts wouldn’t be in any danger based on Clark’s statements, but their reputations and endorsement opportunities could be. However – there’s a tougher standard for public figures. Called “Actual Malice,” it stipulates that the person making the statement wasn’t just being careless, but that he knew the statement to be untrue or exhibited a “reckless disregard for the truth.”

“It’s a tough road for a public figure to win a libel case,” says attorney Robert Richards, founder of Pennsylvania Center for the First Amendment.

No doubt Verlander would have the tougher case, since Clark’s words were pretty much limited to an opinion based on his observations of Verlander’s pitching. But in the case of Pujols, Clark claimed word of steroid use right from the source, from the guy who allegedly “shot him up.” And that guy denies it.

“If the accusation is based on a false underlying fact, Pujols could have a case,” Richards says. Of course, the dispute as to whether Mihfeld and Clark had such a conversation is stuck in ‘he said-he said’ mode right now. A trial, should things get that far, would probably come down to putting both of them on the stand and have a jury decide who’s telling the truth.

The lesson for commentators? Speculate all you want – it’s a free country. Just don’t try to shore up your case by claiming direct knowledge unless you really have it.

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